High iodine prices leave Cambodia without iodised salt

A quick test of 2,300 Cambodian schoolchildren shows that iodine concentrations in urine had dropped by 30 per cent since 2011, and that the problem "threatens the programme's sustainability", the authors concluded.

PHOTO: AFP

THE tsunami and nuclear disaster in Fukushima, Japan, now threatens the developing brains of children in Cambodia - but not for reasons that were ever expected.

Cambodia has long struggled with iodine deficiency. The element is crucial to early brain growth: When pregnant women and their